1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to heat transfer, and in particular to heat transfer in objects. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus of analyzing heat transfer in thermal fluid systems.
2. Background
Older forms of software for analyzing thermal fluid systems have been developed. However, the typical method used to model heat transfer phenomena is the finite differencing method. A difficulty of using the finite differencing method results from the process of breaking down the physical system into a set of differential equations. Often, this level of detail is prohibitive from a computer runtime standpoint. In other words, use of the finite differencing method in real-world models might result in a thermal fluid analysis that requires an undesirable amount of time to perform. Furthermore, in the past, separate tools were used for thermal fluid analysis, pressure drop analysis, and trace contaminant analysis. Thus, a full analysis of a thermal fluid system might be undesirably unwieldy, as well as time intensive and expensive.
As a result, the time and expense increase for designing and manufacturing articles to which the thermal fluid analysis will apply, such as but not limited to buildings or vehicles, especially space vehicles such as the space shuttle. In some cases, the thermal fluid analysis might be considered mandatory, in which case reducing the time, effort, and costs associated with the thermal fluid analysis becomes highly desirable. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus, which takes into account one or more of the issues discussed above as well as possibly other issues.